Tanner Jorden, a 14 year old piano prodigy will be playing the first movement of Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto. He is the winner of the 2017 MASO’s (Montana Association of Symphony Orchestra) youth competition winner. He started playing the piano when he was 7 years old, and has become a deft player according to Dorthea Cromley, of the MSU Billings music program. (billingsgazette.com.)

Edvard Grieg

Edvard Grieg‘s Piano Concerto in A minor was composed in 1868, when he was only 24 years old. It is the only piano concerto Grieg composed. Since then, it has become on of the most popular piano concertos of all time.

Grieg was born in 1843 in Norway. When he was 15, he went to Leipzig, Germany to study at the Leipzig Conservatory. After studying under Europe’s finest instructors, he moved to Copenhagen where he composed his first symphony. In 1866, he moved to Christiana (now Oslo,) Norway. There, he met and married his cousin, Nina Hagerup, in 1867. He also founded the Norwegian Nationalist School of Norway.

“Artists like Bach and Beethoven erected churches and temples on the heights. I only wanted… to build dwellings for Men in which they might feel happy and at home.” Edvard Grieg.

Tchaikovsky’s Pathètique

According to Tchaikovsky himself, Symphony No. 6, Pathètique is the best thing he had composed. Pathètique is the last symphony he wrote, but it was not his swan song as some have speculated due to him passing away only 9 days after it premiered. Pathètique was written during a great period of Tchaikovsky’s life. “He told his publisher he was extremely proud of himself for assembling such a gorgeous work.” (carnegiehall.org)